Satellite images reveal Texas at night

Updated 7:09 pm, Sunday, December 30, 2012

Photo: Courtesy, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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This satellite night image of South Texas clearly shows electrical lights and gas flares in the Eagle Ford Shale region south of San Antonio. This giant arc of lights was not visible on a NASA poster from 1994-95.

This satellite night image of South Texas clearly shows electrical lights and gas flares in the Eagle Ford Shale region south of San Antonio. This giant arc of lights was not visible on a NASA poster from

During a NOAA interview, Elvidge said, "Nothing tells us more about the spread of humans across the Earth than city lights. … Even after 20 years, I'm always amazed at what city-light images show us about human activity."

Recently, NASA released the latest and by far the best images of Earth at night.

Zooming in on the bright splotch formed by the lights of San Antonio quickly shows the nearby but smaller lights of Seguin, New Braunfels, San Marcos and other towns. Houston and Corpus Christi are visible along the Gulf Coast.

Highways are indicated by dots of light formed by communities and small towns.

There's something new and big in this latest satellite view of South Central Texas. It doesn't appear in a similar image from 1994-95 depicted in a large NASA poster that has been on a wall in my office for many years.

What's new is a giant arc of lights south of San Antonio. This huge crescent is the Eagle Ford shale oil and gas region. The lights are the flames of gas flares and the electrical lights of drilling rigs and associated oil-field installations.

Similar but more widespread points of light in the Gulf of Mexico are from oil platforms and ships.

These new night images were acquired by NASA's NPOESS Preparatory Project. This satellite orbits the Earth every 102 minutes at an elevation of about 512 miles.

As with previous images of Earth at night, clouds required multiple images to be merged to provide a clear-sky view of the entire planet.

The latest 2012 image was assembled from data acquired during 312 orbits in April and October 2012.

You can learn much more about the latest Earth-at-night project and both view and download the latest images at earthobservatory.nasa.gov. Enter "night lights" in the search window.